The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand

Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. --MaxedOutMama

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.--Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. --Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. --Billy Beck

You have to give them an "A" for effort, or at least persistence. What a way to reimport the classics!

Marciel Basanta Lopez and Luis Gras Rodriguez have again attempted to sail from Cuba to Florida, but once again have unfortunately been intercepted by the Coast Guard short of their goal.Back in Julythey made the journey in a specially modified 1951 Chevy pickup.

The Coast Guard halted a homemade craft about 25 miles off the Keys that looked like a taxi. The boat was loaded with Cuban migrants.

BY JENNIFER BABSON
jbabson@herald.com

KEY WEST - A blue, 1948 Mercury automobile loaded with Cuban migrants made it within 25 miles of the Keys late Tuesday before being stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard.

The unusual, homemade 'boat' -- described by federal officials as possibly a 'taxicab' and sporting a white top -- was stopped south of Summerland Key in the Lower Keys. It was the third time in nearly two years that Cuban migrants have tried to make it to the United States using trucks or cars specially rigged to operate as boats.

One of the men aboard the Mercury tried to make the voyage in February 2004 in a Buick but was sent back to Cuba, according to Luis Grass -- the brainchild behind similar attempts who made his way to Miami this year.

I wonder what Luis "drove" on his successful attempt?

BOARDING THE CRAFT

Television footage from NBC 6 in Miami on Tuesday night showed Coast Guard officers boarding the vehicle, which appeared to have been modified with a boat prow in front.

As many as 12 Cubans voluntarily left the car late Tuesday and moved onto a Coast Guard cutter, according to numerous federal sources. It was not immediately known if they would be returned to Cuba.

The interdiction unfolded just before dusk Tuesday.

"A U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft detected it just before 8 p.m.," said customs spokesman Zachary Mann. "According to our guys, it looked like a floating taxi."

Citing U.S. policy, Coast Guard spokeswoman Sandra Bartlett said she could not immediately comment on the incident or whether the migrants would be returned to Cuba, a process that could take several days.

Under the U.S. wet-foot, dry-foot immigration policy, Cubans who reach U.S. soil are almost always allowed to remain in the country, while those caught offshore are generally returned to Cuba unless they can convince a U.S. immigration officer they have a 'credible fear' of persecution if returned to the island.

'DRIVING' THE WAY

It was the latest in a series of recent attempts by Cubans to try to 'drive' their way to the Keys.

In July 2003, a group of Cuban migrants -- dubbed "truckonauts" and heralded for their ingenuity -- attempted to flee Cuba in a retrofitted, green 1951 Chevy truck. The group was stopped off Islamorada -- their truck-boat floating on a pontoon bed and powered by propellers that had been attached to the vehicle's drive shaft.

The vessel was sunk at sea as a hazard to navigation.

Returned to Cuba, several of the Cubans tried again in February 2004 using a similarly rigged 1959 Buick sedan. At least some of those who attempted that voyage, however, were taken to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba for resettlement in a third country.

Among that group was Grass, an enterprising mechanic credited with converting the classic vehicles into seaworthy escape vessels. Grass, his wife and young son were among 20 Cuban migrants resettled in Costa Rica last November.

ANOTHER TRY

Grass said late Tuesday that one of his pals -- who may have subsequently received a U.S. visa after failing last year to reach Florida by Buick -- made Tuesday's voyage with his two sons and his wife, who was having difficulty leaving Cuba because she is a doctor.

"He finally made a taxi from Havana to Miami," chuckled Grass, who told The Herald he spoke with the man's friends in Havana late Tuesday.

The group, he said, was from San Miguel Del Padron in Havana.

Grass and his family finally made it to the United States in March after crossing the Mexican border and requesting political asylum.

You have to admire their ingenuity and doggedness.

Bill Whittle noted once that if your map of idealism matches up with reality, you take note of which way the rafts are traveling when determining whether capitalism or communism works better. I can't remember the last time anyone risked their lives getting on a raft made of an antique car, much less flotsam and jetsam, and set sail for Havana to join the People's Paradise of Cuba.

How do you go about having a productive debate with people disconnected from reality? How do you reason with people who've abandoned the practice? How do you even discuss first principles with people who think words mean only what they want them to mean, and can change their definition at any time? For whom "winning" is the only priority, and are unparalleled masters at psychological projection?

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

If I'm not mistaken, this is the motto that John Edwards ran for President under in 2004, but now, after eight years of Obama's Presidency - unexpectedly! - it's a new claim and somehow all Trump's fault.

Apparently Obama wasn't much of a uniter after all.

Either that, or the Ctrl-Left and its media mouthpieces can't come up with a new idea to save its life.

I guess it all goes back to that other fallback meme: We're ungovernable.

Monday, November 21, 2016

It’s important to understand why liberals are so angry and so scared. They are angry because they believe they have a moral right to command us, apparently bestowed by Gaia or #Science or having gone to Yale, and we are irredeemably deplorable for not submitting to their benevolent dictatorship.

They are scared because they fear we will wage the same kind of campaign of petty (and not so petty) oppression, intimidation, and bullying that they intended to wage upon us.

Friday, November 18, 2016

So I spent some time earlier this week at a gold mine under construction in South Carolina. Part of that time was spent in "site specific" safety training, said training being administered by the head of site security.

Now, I grew up in the South, my parents are from Appalachian coal country, so I've heard a few "Southerinisms" in my time, but this one:

"Some folks in this county would steal the yeast from a biscuit without touchin' the crust."

Monday, November 14, 2016

The flood of Trump-fearing American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week. The Republican presidential campaign is prompting an exodus among left-leaning Americans who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, pay taxes, and live according to the Constitution.

"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said southern Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. "He was cold, exhausted and hungry, and begged me for a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left before I even got a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. He then installed loudspeakers that blared Rush Limbaugh across the fields, but they just stuck their fingers in their ears and kept coming. Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals just south of the border, pack them into electric cars, and drive them across the border, where they are simply left to fend for themselves after the battery dies.

"A lot of these people are not prepared for our rugged conditions," an Alberta border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a single bottle of Perrier water, or any gemelli with shrimp and arugula. All they had was a nice little Napa Valley cabernet and some kale chips. When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing that they fear persecution from Trump high-hairers."

Rumors are circulating about plans being made to build re-education camps where liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer, study the Constitution, and find jobs that actually contribute to the economy.

In recent days, liberals have turned to ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have been disguised as senior citizens taking a bus trip to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans in blue-hair wig disguises, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior citizens about Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney to prove that they were alive in the '50s. "If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we become very suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage, are buying up all the Barbara Streisand CD's, and are overloading the internet while downloading jazzercise apps to their cell phones.

"I really feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "After all, how many art-history majors does one country need?

Saturday, November 12, 2016

I'm going to be there all next week. Got to get up at O'mygod-thirty tomorrow morning to make an 8:15 flight out. I arrive in Charlotte about 4:30PM, and then I have to drive to Lancaster, SC to get to my hotel. I'll be working ~10 hours a day all week, but I ought to be free for dinner at least one night. Anybody live in the general vicinity and want to get together?

Friday, November 11, 2016

The number of electoral votes per state is determined by the number of congressional districts plus one for each senator, for a total of 538.

But there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents any of the electors from refusing to support the candidate who won their state, or from abstaining. Twenty-nine states ban the "faithless elector" practice.

A petition on Change.org is pushing for electors to vote for Clinton instead of Trump. It had more than 175,000 signatures as of Thursday morning; by early evening, it had more than 1.4 million.

Part of the petition reads:

Mr. Trump is unfit to serve. His scapegoating of so many Americans, and his impulsivity, bullying, lying, admitted history of sexual assault, and utter lack of experience make him a danger to the Republic.

Secretary Clinton WON THE POPULAR VOTE and should be President.

Hillary won the popular vote. The only reason Trump "won" is because of the Electoral College.

But the Electoral College can actually give the White House to either candidate. So why not use this most undemocratic of our institutions to ensure a democratic result?

SHE WON THE POPULAR VOTE.

There is no reason Trump should be President.

"It's the 'People's Will'"

No. She won the popular vote.

"Our system of government under our Constitution says he wins"

No. Our Constitution says the Electors choose.

"Too many states prohibit 'Faithless Electors'"

24 states bind electors. If electors vote against their party, they usually pay a fine. And people get mad. But they can vote however they want and there is no legal means to stop them in most states.

So, I've spent a lot of windshield time over the last couple of days, and I've been listening to Talk Radio (which I very seldom do). Who is this Trump guy that the Right Wing radio guys are talking about? Who they say is going to get into the White House and start accomplishing all this stuff that he promised to do, or that they think he'll do?

Excuse me, but haven't they been paying attention over, oh, the last forty years or so?

Presidents don't have that kind of power

The Stupid Party isn't that organized (which is how Trump won the nomination).

The Stupid Party loathes Trump almost as much as The Evil Party does.

We're in for at least four years of gridlock. If we're lucky, Trump will get a real Constitutionalist confirmed to the Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated by Scalia. If we're EXTREMELY LUCKY.
As far as getting anything actually DONE? MAYBE Obamacare will die a horrible death, but Trump has already said he wants to replace it with something. I'd like to introduce President-elect Trump to Thomas Sowell, who once said:

“No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: "But what would you replace it with?" When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with?”
I swear, what I'm hearing from the speakers of my truck sounds exactly like Peggy Joseph:

This year the media asked itself the same question with regard to Donald Trump: "How is it he's still so popular?" Or, as Hillary put it, "Why aren't I fifty points ahead?"

"Bias" wasn't the answer, Professor Patrick discovered:

It is not that liberal-conservative bias does not affect coverage at times. Or that other forms of bias do not exist. One would have to be naïve to the point of addle-headedness to believe otherwise. Elite journalists tend to identify themselves with politically liberal causes, and personal idealism cannot possibly be segregated from the interpretation of events. Doubtless, too, old fashioned economic concerns have killed many a news story. Many discern in the national media, some on the basis of good evidence a conservative bias supporting economic imperialism and mindless consumerism.

Additionally, the powerful forces of personal psychological projection interact with the amorphous nature of external events that media professionals must daily interpret, in ways that allow just about everyone to see what they need or want to see in the media. The Left sees bias for the Right; Right sees Left; schizophrenics and the devoutly religious see the Hand of God, devils, or aliens at work; we could also list racism, sexism, internationalism, and the exploitation of women and girls, men, animals, and classes. There are bugs and bugaboos in the media appropriate to nearly every orientation or fixation. So bias is often not just about what affects coverage, but also what affects perceptions of coverage.

That elite media may be biased for or against a particular issue or topic is interesting, and this knowledge may help an interest group rally indignation or manage its public relations; however it tells little about the overall functioning of media in society. This latter concern is the broader and more important idea, with larger implications. The overall ranking results provide such an explanation.

The larger concept that lies behind the consistent ranking is a broad cultural level phenomenon that I will label an administrative control bias. It has profound implications. Administrative control in this usage means rational, scientific, objective social management by elite, symbol-manipulating classes, and subclasses, i.e., professionalized administrators or bureaucratic functionaries. The thing administered is often democracy itself, or a version of it at least. Here and throughout this chapter terms such as "rational," "objective," "professional," and "scientific" should be read in the sense of the belief systems that they represent, i.e. rationalism, objectivism, professionalism, and scientism. Scientism is not the same as being scientific; the first is a matter of faith and ritualistic observance, the other is difficult creative work. William James made a similar distinction between institutional religion and being religious, the first being a smug and thoughtless undertaking on the part of most people, the second, a difficult undertaking affecting every aspect of a life. The term scientistic administration would pertain here. Note that we move here well beyond the notion of mere gun control and into the realm of general social control, management and regulation.

In other words, journalists are statists. But beyond that, they see themselves as having a job in that state apparatus:

Previous to objective journalism, baldly partisan news media were the norm; under objectivity news became a scientific tool of social progress and management. The elite press continues also to serve this function, connecting administrators and managers not only to the world they seek to administrate but also to other managers with whom they must coordinate their efforts. So in this sense social movement-based critiques have been correct in identifying a sort of pseudo-pluralism operating in the public forum, a pluralism that is in reality no more than an exclusive conversation between elite class subcomponents - but this over-class is administrative in outlook and purpose.

--

Journalists acquire importance in the mass democratic system precisely because they gather, convey, and interpret the data that inform individual choices. Mere raw, inaccessible data transforms to political information that is piped to where it will do the most good. Objective, balanced coverage becomes essential, at least in pretense, lest this vital flow of information to be thought compromised, thus affecting not only the quality of rational individual decision-making, but also the legitimacy of the system.

Working from within the perspective of the mass democracy model for social action it is difficult to specify an ideal role model of journalistic coverage other than a "scientific objectivism" at work. An event (i.e., reality) causes coverage, or so the objective journalist would and often does say. Virtually all of the journalists that I have ever talked with regard coverage as mirroring reality.

--

The claim being advanced here, by assumption, is that journalists can truly convey or interpret the nature of reality as opposed to the various organizational versions of events in which journalists must daily traffic. The claim is incredible and amounts to a Gnostic pretension of being "in the know" about the nature or reality, or at least the reality that matters most politically.

An ecclesiastical model most appropriately describes this elite journalistic function under mass democracy. Information is the vital substance that makes the good democracy possible. It allows, as it were, for the existence of the good society, a democratic state of grace. Information is in this sense analogous to the concept of divine grace under the pre-Reformation Roman Catholic Church. Divine grace was essential for the good spiritual life, the life that mattered. The clergy dispensed divine grace to the masses in the form of sacraments. They were its intermediaries, who established over time a monopoly, becoming the exclusive legitimate channel of divine grace.

And here's the kicker:

Recollect that the interposition of intermediaries, the clergy, along a vital spiritual-psychological supply route was the rub of the Reformation. The clergy cloaked themselves in the mantle of spiritual authority rather than acting as its facilitators. Many elite newspapers have apparently done much the same thing, speaking and interpreting authoritatively for democracy, warranting these actions on the basis of social responsibility. Of course, then and now, many people do not take the intermediaries seriously.

It is not accident, then, that the pluralistic model of social action largely discounts journalists as an important class. In the same way the decentralized religious pluralism generically known as Protestantism discounts the role of clergy. This should be expected. Pluralism and Protestantism share common historical origins. American pluralism particularly is deeply rooted in the Reformation's reaction to interpretive monopoly.

Journalists, particularly elite journalists, occupy under mass democracy this ecclesiastical social role, a functional near-monopoly whose duty becomes disseminating and interpreting the administrative word and its symbols unto the public.

I told you that, so I could tell you this. Will Rahn is a political correspondent and managing director, politics, for CBS News Digital. He wrote an op-ed that published today entitled "The unbearable smugness of the press," in which he says (in part):

Journalists love mocking Trump supporters. We insult their appearances. We dismiss them as racists and sexists. We emote on Twitter about how this or that comment or policy makes us feel one way or the other, and yet we reject their feelings as invalid.

It’s a profound failure of empathy in the service of endless posturing. There’s been some sympathy from the press, sure: the dispatches from “heroin country” that read like reports from colonial administrators checking in on the natives. But much of that starts from the assumption that Trump voters are backward, and that it’s our duty to catalogue and ultimately reverse that backwardness. What can we do to get these people to stop worshiping their false god and accept our gospel?

We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused medical problems with demonic possession. Journalists, at our worst, see ourselves as a priestly caste.We believe we not only have access to the indisputable facts, but also a greater truth, a system of beliefs divined from an advanced understanding of justice.

(Bold emphasis mine.)

I have news for Mr. Rahn - it's been apparent for quite a while that journalists act as a priestly class. I think, at their worst, some recognize it in themselves - and wallow in it.

Which explains, I think, why more and more Americans are abandoning the Church of the MSM.

Still, it's nice to see self-confirmation of Professor Patrick's hypothesis by a member of media.

So apparently Stephen Colbert was conciliatory on election night when it appeared that Trump might win:

(You needn't watch the entire thing, but at least watch from about 1:50 to about 3:30.)

But the very next day:

Right back to form.

I found these clips over at AR15.com, along with this excellent reaction by "John_Wayne777":

Fuck Colbert and fuck his little buddy John Stewart.

Colbert had a show for how many years predicated entirely on mocking people who disagree with his progressive preferences. And he's a contributor to the bubble of smugness that these motherfuckers live in.

He is the fucking poison. He is the fucking toxicity.

I'm sick to fucking death of people who have been calling everyone who disagrees with them intellectually deficient and morally degenerate trying to pretend they are somehow deeply intellectual by asking how politics became so "toxic".

Not, you understand, because there are people dragging Trump supporters out of cars and beating them up for supporting the wrong candidate. Not because there were fuckheads burning cities and killing police officers under the headline BLACK LIVES MATTER! Not because one of the parties rigged its primary so it could ensure no significant opposition to a woman under investigation for the FBI who somehow magicked up a 300 million dollar fortune by giving "speeches".

No, politics is "toxic" because a bunch of people went out and voted for a dude they don't like and told these people to go fuck themselves.

Yeah. Fuck that "toxic" shit.

Motherfucker, I didn't turn politics into a fucking knife fight. You fuckers are the ones who decided that no law or principle mattered more than winning.

I haven't stooped to your level and never will...but neither will I continue to abide by Marquis of Queensberry rules. You want a knife fight? Fine. Don't fucking whine when you get cut.

Wednesday, November 09, 2016

To those who are grieving this morning... grieve. I understand. I am so sorry.
To those who achieved victory... be gracious. No matter what.
To all of you... we have a Republic, if we can keep it. And WE are ALL its children. Love one another. No matter what.
God bless America.

I left the following comment:

Sorry, Nick, but The Other Side™ has been diligently working for 100 years at demonizing their opposition. Charles Krauthammer correctly identified the issue when he made his declaration in 2002:

"To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil."

If you believe your opposition is EVIL, then there is no "loving your enemy" - they aren't merely wrong, they're EVIL and must be not merely defeated, but destroyed.

That's been increasingly how the Left has been working for the last couple of decades now, while the opposite side of the aisle has been treating them as "The Loyal Opposition." WE'RE in a contest. THEY'RE fighting a WAR, with nothing less than the fate of humanity riding on the outcome. We get involved in politics every couple of years, maybe. For them, it's existential.

...I understand Hillary was served a super-sized Basket of Deplorables with a side of crow.

Still, I'm having a hard time understanding the celebration from the Hard Right when Trump is about as far from a Conservative as you can get and not have a (D) after your name.

Looking forward to all those Leftists leaving the country, though, and showing how RACIST™! they are. I mean they're all talking about moving to the "Great White North." NOBODY is talking about moving "Brown South."

Tuesday, November 01, 2016

One of my Facebook friends is someone I went to High School with. She posted this tonight:

Tonight I decided I wanted to be fully informed about what Obamacare would mean to our family if we chose to pursue it as our health insurance option. I went to the Obamacare website online. That website sent me to an insurance broker who called my home. I told him I wanted to check rates for Obamacare for our family of four. He said, "I can give you a quote but its going to be a terrible plan and more expensive than any other plan because the rates just went up 40% in North Carolina." I pressed him to give me the rate anyway. He then quoted me a rate of $2195/month with a $14,300 deductible. (That equals basically paying $2195/month with no coverage short of a healthcare catastrophe.) I then asked him how that quote would change if my income was lower. He said that the rate would be exactly the same for anyone over a $40,000/year income. If someone making $40,000/year (only $16,717/year above the poverty level for NC) decided to sign up for Obamacare, they would be paying $26,340/year in insurance premiums plus whatever health care costs they had until they met their $14,300 deductible. (By the way, if this happened, it would mean, at that point, they would have spent more than they make/year on their healthcare.)

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